Probably the only blog that involves monkeys, garden gnomes and your mom.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Changeling

OK, I've been in a funk and it doesn't help that work is having me bring back the sports blog (plus multiple other things). When I get home I don't want to write anymore, the ideas are in my head, but the will is forcing them to stay in there. The Wife and I finally got out and went to see a movie and I had to write about it.

Changeling is one of the best movies I have seen in years. From start to finish it was a quality movie were the plot did not fade nor did I lose interest half way through. The basic premise of the movie is; in 1928 A woman loses her son and the police try and help, but instead of finding her son they give her another child. I will try and not give too much away, but if you want to see the movie I'd probably stop reading and come back to this post afterwards. The story too many strange turns at one point the police threw Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) in a mental ward.

I've had many mixed feelings about the acting skills of Angelina, but she did an outstanding job. Then you had Jeffery Donaovan, who The Wife loves from the TV show Burn Notice, the way I can tell if someone does an outstanding villain role is if The Wife hates the actor after the movie. She now despises Jeffery Donovan. He played the unapologetic and manipulative police captain to a tee. His arrogance and undercutting of Christine Collins was wonderfully done. Rounding out the major cast was John Malkovich, he played Reverend Gustav Briegleb and minister who wants to expose the sins of the cities police department. Early on you get the feel he wants to help and for me in the middle I got the sense he did not care about the plight of Christine and was using her to take on the city. Yes, he was fighting for a noble cause, but his intentions were not true. He did end up helping and causing change within the system, yet he could not have done it without Christine.

I made the statement that this was the best movie I have seen in years, and honestly that is not a hard statement to say. I feel we have fallen into a blackhole of crap with movies. Most are not complete and missing some key element. For some reason we take the phrase "independent" and make it grander than it is (Juno, Little Miss Sunshine), or a big budget "Oscar" movie as of the past few years have fallen short, either the story wasn't great but the acting made it better (There Will Be Blood) or it was "ground breaking" yet there was no real substance (Brokeback Mountain). Looking at the list of past nominees Changeling rivals Crash and my favorite (post Lord of the Rings) Finding Neverland.

It appears most critics are giving Changeling either an A or a C. Most of the C are based on technical merit and how the critic yearns for the old Eastwood days. Honestly I loved this movie, maybe this could be the start of Hollywood coming back to its senses and will start to give us substance instead of the drivel that has been forced upon us.